How can I get my guest VMs running with XenServer to have 32 bit color depth? The computer I'm on is at 32-bit. I RDP into a VM which is running XenCenter. I can't switch its color depth away from 16-bit, even though my RDP settings say 32-bit as the color depth from the session. From XenCenter on that VM I can go to the consoles of other VMs, but they can only be 16-bit or 24-bit.

What version of xenserver are you using? have you installed all of the latest tools/drivers inside the VM? Do you know for a fact that this can be done? That your machine is 32-bit is irrelevant by the way.
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Chopper3Nov 15 '10 at 20:18

hm im not sure it can be done but i hope so!
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ClaudiuNov 15 '10 at 20:27

what video card does the VM think it's got and how much memory too?
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Chopper3Nov 15 '10 at 20:36

1 Answer
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The original physical 5446 that XenServer bases its virtual graphics adapter on only supported Truecolor at best ie 24bit color depth and that limitation is shared with XenServer VM's so 32bit is definitely out of the question.

The 24bit color depth is also only supported on some resolutions due to the 4Meg Video RAM limit in Citrix's virtual implementation so you may have some luck getting a better video mode at lower resolutions but you wont ever get 32bit.

If you want better video quality then XenDesktop might give you a better experience but I don't think that actually supports full 32bit color depth either (although I'm open to corrections there).